


once more unto the breach

by cintra



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: An attempt to imitate how TLOU includes notes to add to the narrative, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Gen Work, Humor, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26553076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cintra/pseuds/cintra
Summary: Santa Barbara is over one thousand miles south of Seattle. It’s a longshot but it’s the only lead they have, so they take it. As they travel the coast, Lev wrestles with his faith and Abby writes letters to a dead man as a way to cope. They spend the days learning to understand each other and the nights learning how to let go of the past.If there's ever a time for growth, a year in a tiny sailboat is probably one of them.
Relationships: Abby & Lev (The Last of Us)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 59





	1. stand by me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abby and Lev make a pact.

They don’t say a word to each other the entire way back to the aquarium. 

Lev doesn’t look at Abby. He has the sense that she doesn’t want to be looked at right now. Instead he keeps his eyes focused on the north where, between breaks in the skyline, he can still see the fires at Haven burning in the distance and smell the smoke even through the rain. 

“Lev.”

He glances over at Abby, one hand outstretched to pull him up and out of the boat. He takes it, feeling sticky blood from the cut in her arm that had run down her hands in the rainfall. Her expression is unreadable in the dark. He follows her up the steps towards the aquarium. He is taken aback how the place that had seemed safe now seemed foreboding, even frightening. Owen and Mel are still in there. Well, their bodies are, throats slashed and blood seeping across the wet floor.

He had asked Abby what happened: a man killed her father, Abby and her friends killed him. Then the trespassers who care for the man came and killed Owen and Mel. Then Abby went to kill them and he’d helped her do it. He’d just wanted to ease her pain in that moment. 

“Hey.” Abby’s voice is low and quiet as she pulls open the door to the aquarium. No point in locking it now. Who would even come? “You should probably get some dry clothes. You can look around the gift shop and find something.”

“I’m fine.” He’s used to the Seattle rain and she knows it. “Abby, you’re still bleeding.” She blinks and then examins her arm with a sort of detached interest, seemingly unaware of the blood from the cut on her face that is staining her shirt.

“I’m fine. ...Don’t give me that look.” She huffs, making a face that he’s already learned means that she’s trying to figure out how to walk back whatever she just said. “Look. You go get some clothes and I’ll go find some medical supplies upstairs. Deal?”

“Deal.” She's pointedly avoiding going into the back.

Lev can’t blame her.

***

Lev opens the door to the upstairs cafe, sporting a dry “Seattle Aquarium” novelty shirt as promised, along with Abby’s coat. Abby is seated on the couch closest to the window, her eyes focused on the storming seas ahead and a blank expression on her face. There is a notepad by her side with words and scribbles on it but he can't make out what she'd written. Or tried to write. She’d kept her end of the bargain as her arm and cheek were now bandaged. Lev couldn’t help notice the application was rather haphazard, suggesting she’d had the training but not the skill. Or maybe she lacked the desire to care for herself properly.

“Hey,” He gently drops down onto the couch next to her.

“Hey.” There is an attempt at a smile on her end and Lev knew if he wasn’t there, she wouldn’t bother. “That t-shirt’s pretty ‘cold’.”

“You’re teasing me.” He shakes his head.

“Just a little.” For a second her smile seems brighter but he can tell she's fighting off the consuming darkness of what happened at that theater. Of what she’d done. And what she’d almost done. “So what do you wanna do now?”

“Hmm.” Lev looks outside. He can't see Haven from this angle and he's grateful for it. “I just want to be far from here. From the Island. I don’t want to go back, ever.”

“No disagreements there. Fuck Scars.”

“Wolves too.”

“Fuck all of Seattle.”

“Fuck it.” He agreed.

They sit in silence after that, just listening to the sounds of the ocean outside. Lev searches his memory to think of some scripture that he could say, something to comfort Abby. Something to reassure himself. But the Prophet’s words in his head are eclipsed by memories of his mother and Yara and how the blood from their bodies flowed and seeped into the ground like it was nothing more than rainwater. He ends up falling asleep on Abby’s shoulder before he can come up with something to say that could ease either of their turmoil.

>   
>  _I’m sorry._
> 
> _What happened to you. To everyone. It’s my fault. And I know you’d try to say that it wasn’t and everyone was in on going to Jackson, but we all know the fucking truth._
> 
> _I nearly fucked it up again today. Shocking for me, right? I thought I’d finally started to figure it all out. That I was doing the right thing. Then I saw you and Mel…_
> 
> _If Lev hadn’t been there, I don’t know what would have happened._
> 
> _I just want to be done with all of it. I don’t want Lev to be a part of this. I just want him to find a place where he can be safe and happy like he deserves._
> 
> _So I can’t believe I’m saying this - but we’re going to Santa Barbara. We’re going to find the Fireflies._
> 
> _It’s the only lead we have._

***

Lev awakens the next morning to find Abby gone and a blanket wrapped around him. He rubs an eye and looks outside, blinking at the sun breaking through the remnants of storm clouds. It feels like he’d slept for days and returned to waking in an entirely different world. His bow and knife had been set on the table near him (he didn’t remember taking it off, Abby must have done that); he picks them up and treks down the stairs into the lobby. “Abby?”

The door to the amphitheater is open. And there it was: Owen’s infamous boat that was supposed to take them far away from here. At the very least, it was bigger than any boat he’d ever seen before. Abby is there too, tossing supplies into the back. “Lev. Hey. Can you grab that bag?”

“Did you even sleep?” He asks, tossing the bag to her.

“I slept enough. You were out like a light though. I figured I’d let you sleep after everything that happened.”

“What?”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

“Okay,” He gives her a look before turning his gaze to the sailboat. It’s different from the boats he’s seen before--bigger, with a panel of controls that he can’t make sense of. “So are we going to be leaving in this?”

“Yeah. I figured… I figured we’d use it to get out of here. I told Owen-” She trails off and then quickly pushes forward even though he can tell it hurts, like saying his name will cauterize her wounds. “I told him to fix it before I left to get you. And… he was a guy who keeps his word.”

Lev squints at her. “Do you even know how to sail a boat?”

Abby shoots him an indignant look back. “I know that you get the wind to catch the sail and then you use the wheel to steer.”

“So you’ve never sailed a boat before,” He confirms.

“It can’t be that hard. Santa Barbara is a straight shot south once we get to the ocean. How can ye of much faith be of so… little faith. Come on.” She huffed.

“Where the Fireflies are, right?”

“Yeah. Where they’re supposed to be.” Abby looks starkly different from last night, where she’d seemed so defeated. Now there is a glint in her eye that he’d seen a shadow of when she’d volunteered herself to get supplies for Yara. Something almost hopeful, something defiant, something very different from her demeanor last night. 

“You with me, Lev?” There is a nervous undertone to her voice that he's sure she didn’t think he’d pick up on.

He glances up across the skyline at the massive tower at the south of Haven. He thinks about people who never cared to understand him, and Yara, who gave up everything because she did. He thinks about Abby and all her different facets: the Abby who protected them from demons, the Abby who climbed the skybridge, the Abby who killed her own people to save him, the Abby sobbing over the bodies of Owen and Mel, the Abby with her knife to that woman’s neck, the Abby sitting alone and staring at the sea. 

“I’m with you.” He leaps into the boat, landing soft and sure-footed like a cat. “We should figure out how to sail the boat. It would be bad if you just sank it as soon as we left and we both died.”

“Fuck you, Lev.” Abby grins, brighter than he’d ever seen and shoves him gently by the shoulder as she walks into the cabin.

“You’re just saying that because you know I’m right.” Lev shrugs and follows close on her heels. Despite himself, his eyes move to glance out at the ocean and his heart freezes. _Think about the good parts of fear_ , he tells himself sternly as he enters the cabin of the sailboat after Abby. It was small but seemed sturdy enough. 

There are supplies near the cabin entrance that Owen had already been storing. In the cabin itself, is a bed, a couch, a table, and chairs plus a sink and cabinets. Livable enough, he supposes. A small white object on the table catches his eye. He picks it up and examines it curiously.

“What’s this?”

Abby glances to the side, as if expecting to make an off-hand comment, but as she sees the object her face lights up. “Holy shit. It’s Owen’s iPod.”

Lev stares at her blankly. 

“Oh. Uh. It plays music.”

Lev crosses his arms and gives her a disbelieving look.

Abby gives him a look back. “Don’t look at me that way. It does. See?”

She reaches over and presses on the funny object and sound explodes from it, filling the cabin with drum beats and funny melodic screeching noise. Lev gasps and nearly drops it before Abby quickly reaches over and taps on it, causing the sound to stop.

“That’s cursed.” Lev glares at the offending object.

“It is not! It’s cool. We, well Owen, found it, back when we were kids. But we decided it was a shared find. We used to spend hours just listening to the songs. We had them all memorized.”

Abby’s voice is far away before she shook her head. “Look. Consider it an education. You can be the trip DJ. ...Which means you can pick the music.” She explains before he has a chance to ask as she handed him back the device. “See, you can use this to scroll through the music-” She demonstrates, moving her hand across the base of the object and the sounds dance from drum beats to guitar as she moves through the songs. Lev watches, intrigued, despite the voice in the back of his head telling him not to touch anything from the Old World.

“I don’t even know what to pick …” He mutters as she placed the object back on the table.

“You’ll figure it out,” She says with confidence that he wasn’t sure was justified as she props open the hatch on the ceiling and climbs up onto the bow of the boat. She's energized in a way that he’d never seen realized beyond a spark. Abby leans over and offers her hand to him through the hatch and he takes it without hesitation. She pulls him effortless up through it.

The wind feels stronger up there and he has to squint to keep his eyes open against the gale and the sun.

“Which way is Santa Barbara?”

“That way. Straight south.” Abby turns him and shows him. There’s nothing but ocean and rocky coast as far as he can see.  
“How long will it take to get there?”

“I dunno. Months, probably. We’ll need to make stops at night and for supplies. Could be a year even.” His palms start to sweat but he grips them firmly. He doesn’t know if Abby notices and that’s what makes her crouch down a little to look at him.

“Lev. You don’t… We could try to find something else. Maybe there’s a settlement somewhere along the coast that could take you in.”

He looks up at her, eyes firmly locked on hers. “We’re going to Santa Barbara. We don’t let anyone stop us.”

She grips his shoulder. “We don’t let anyone stop us.”

***

> _Owen, I guess we’re going to Santa Barbara. If you fucked up fixing this thing and this boat sinks two days out, you better hope there’s no heaven or hell because I’m gonna make your afterlife miserable._
> 
> _Lev is coming. I’m glad. I mean, I know he doesn’t have anywhere else to go but I didn’t want to make him come. He’s scared of the ocean, you know? So he’s being really brave. I mean, he’s always brave. But I wish he didn’t have to be brave all the time, and he could be like we were when we were growing up. There were the Infected but we had fun too. We watched movies, listened to music, partied, danced… We had it better than we knew, really. I wish I'd appreciated it more._
> 
> _Anyway, thanks for bringing your iPod. I guess I should have known you would. You would have married that thing. Lev loves playing around with it and listening to songs, just like we did._
> 
> _I’ll keep writing until we get to Santa Barbara. Maybe I’ll get the chance to say things I didn’t say before. At the very least, I’ll let you know if you led us on a wild goose chase or not._
> 
> _Oh by the way, Lev doesn’t like Wonderwall either, so sorry, you’re still outnumbered on Wonderwall being lame as fuck. I tried to tell you for years and save you from this shame._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original iPod classic would survive anything, I tell ya,
> 
> Also the original version of this chapter was written in past tense but I edited it to be in present because I write faster that way. Hope you all don't mind!


	2. message in a bottle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lev and Abby brave, suffer, and admire the ocean.
> 
> (also cw: for nondescript mentions of vomiting)

The ocean wasn’t scary, Lev decides. The ocean is, in fact, a rocking, rolling, violent pool of misery. 

The first few hours after they departed Seattle were surprisingly uneventful. Abby was apparently much more equipped, or perhaps much more capable of ingenuity than he expected, when it came to sailing the boat. He sat in the back and watched her adjust the sails, asking her questions trying to soothe his anxiety by focusing on her and not the water around them. (“How deep is the ocean?” “Pretty deep.” “Will we sleep on the boat at night?” “Yes, but we’ll anchor near the shore.” “Will we see sharks?” “I dunno, I think they usually live pretty deep down right?” “I think so.”)

He watched as the tall buildings of Seattle faded slowly into the distance behind and in front of him was the ocean. A gaping maw beyond the last of the shore that felt like it could swallow him whole. His stomach churned as he stared at that distant horizon, that seemed so close but was truly an unfathomable distance away.

They slept at the last shoreline for the night. Abby got into an impressive fight with the anchor before she managed to figure how to drop it properly. Lev tried to sleep but he felt uneasy, like his heart was hammering too loudly in his ears for him to sleep. He was unable to keep the thoughts of the anchor breaking and drifting out to sea and falling over the horizon out of his head. From the shifting in the other bed, he didn’t think Abby got much sleep either.

When he woke up, Abby was already awake. Although the expectation was to rise early for work back in Haven, he’d never been one to do it naturally. Abby though, seemed to be a morning person. Or at least someone desperate to have something to do every waking hour or else she’d have to think about things she didn’t want to think about. Lev helped her set up the sail, trying to ignore the anxiety stirring in his stomach. _Be strong,_ he told himself. _It’s okay to be weak, but find strength._

Within a few hours they break past the last shoreline and are born into the sea. It feels like staring into an abyss, dark and endless and able to swallow him up as though he were nothing or as if he never existed at all. At least he can turn and stare back at the shore instead. They’re following the coast, going thousands of miles, and seeing the land makes him feel more steady. He settles on a seat near the steering wheel where Abby had taken up the helm.

“See? We didn’t fucking sink,” Abby says triumphantly.

“We only just left,” he reminds her. “We still have plenty of time left to sink.”

“Jeez, has anyone ever told you you’re a real pessimist.”

“No.”

“Well, you are.”

Eventually, they fall into silence as Abby fiddles with the radar and Lev just looks over the waves trying to steady himself by watching the coast once more and ignoring his stomach churning and the sweat forming on his palms. It doesn’t seem to be working. Every movement of the boat is intensified, as though every wave washes over his body and sends him reeling. His head pounded. He dropped his face into his arms, resting his forehead on the cool metal of the railing. _If you can weather the storm, you’ll find calm waters. Sometimes, you have to suffer to find relief. Go through turmoil to find peace._

“Lev.” Abby’s hand brushes against his back.

“Mmngh,” is the only reply he can manage without feeling like his entire body will collapse in on itself if he dares move an inch.

“Hey, kid you okay? Or just taking a really uncomfortable looking nap?”

He raises his head to scowl at her and she frowns. “Shit Lev, you look awful.”

Lev tries to come up with a retort. 

Instead, he throws up on her shoes. (Which perhaps is a retort in and of itself.)

He wants to apologize immediately but decides a better idea is to lean over the side of the boat and continue to heave. Abby curses under her breath and rubs his back until he’s done. He spits to try and clear the acidic taste in his mouth before starting to apologize again but Abby cuts him off as she kicks her shoes off onto the deck. “Let’s just have you lie down, okay?” He doesn’t have the energy to argue as she marches him into the cabin and into bed.

> _So._
> 
> _Remember when we had that party back in Salt Lake? I had just turned sixteen and it was supposed to just be for adults but you helped sneak me in so I could crash? (And I guess Manny and Nora helped too). You really only did it because you liked me and wanted a chance to spend time with me. Except it was my first time drinking and I got fucking wasted. Remember? You used to love telling this story so I’m sure you do. Anyway, I was hammered and you walked me back to my room and just as you told me that you thought I was cute, I puked on your shoes?_
> 
> _So I’m still not apologizing for that because you gave me those drinks so some of it is on you but I’m just saying guess karma is kind of a bitch._

The rest of the day and the night pass in a daze that he could barely remember. Abby makes him stay in bed, only letting him sit up to sip water or eat some bread that Owen had stored. He moves between sleep and wishing he could return to sleep whenever he was awake. As much as he hates to be a burden, his body and the sea seemed to be incompatible. All he can do is keep his eyes closed and let the drum beats and guitar strums from the iPod clutched in his lull him back to his dreams.

“See? I was right to be afraid of the ocean,” he groans as he collapses onto his couch turned bed after Abby forces another round of water on him the next morning.

“You’re just seasick. It should pass after a few days.” Abby scoffs as she tosses a blanket over his legs.

“Fuck seasickness,” Lev grumbles as if that jab would somehow make him feel better. At least it makes Abby laugh.

“Yeah, fuck it. But keep resting.”

“I hate just sitting here.”

“Well, I hate getting my shoes puked on so we’re trying to meet in the middle here.” Lev groans. There isn’t really a good argument to be had: he wouldn’t want his shoes vomited on either. The boat rocks and he pulls the blanket over his head, like the thin fabric can protect him from the misery all around him. His rest is filled with memories of Abby standing over him, making him drink and rubbing his back to soothe him back to sleep.

When he wakes up again, there is light streaming through the windows of the boat. Lev feels heavy, like there’s an anchor attached to his body and mind, trying to drag him back into the ocean of sleep. It’s tempting but the surprising sensation of his stomach growling with hunger instead of rolling with nausea keeps him from doing so.

Huh, maybe Abby was right. But he doesn’t think he’ll tell her that. She’ll probably be smug about it.

Cautiously, he swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands. The boat moves but he stays steady. He takes another step and then another. He doesn’t fall nor does his stomach lurch. It’s like his body has synchronized to the dance and flow of the boat over the waves, no longer conflicting but in harmony

He steps out into the bright sunlight, sneezes, and looks around blearily. Abby is at the steering wheel once more but she didn’t seem to be paying much attention. Instead, she’s resting against the railing, a book in her hand, looking more relaxed than he’d ever seen her. Also, he felt a little baffled at her ability to read on a boat. At his entrance, she looked up and gave him a grin.

“Hey you’re up. Feeling better?”

“A little,” He yawns.

“See, I told you.”

“Are you always this annoying when you’re right?” He drops onto the seat next to her.

“Yes. Every time.”

Abby’s smile made him want to smile. The sensation felt a little strange. Moments of joy back in Haven had been so rare for him. Only Yara had ever been able to coax more out of him. “I’m hungry.” He admits.

“We should probably try to save what we have. What do you think about fishing?”

“I know how to fish.” 

“Cool. I’ll grab the rods and we can fish before we stop for the night.” She locks the wheel and stands up, making a big show of giving him a wide berth as she makes her way over to the other seat, lifts it up, and pulls out two fishing rods. “Thank god, Owen actually used some of his brain for planning for once.” Then she holds one out to him while keeping her distance and requiring him to reach over and take it from her. Lev scowls and doesn’t move.

“What are you doing?”

“Uh, staying out of the splash zone?” Abby raises her eyebrows at him and there’s a lightness about her. She was so much more open here. Like she’d finally shed a weight that she’d been carrying around and left it to fester and die with the rest of her past life in Seattle while she was reborn anew in this tiny boat in the impossibly large ocean.

“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” Lev sighs deeply. He’d only known Abby for a few days but he already knew the answer.

“Never, dude. I’m gonna put it on your gravestone.”

“We don’t have gravestones. When Seraphites die, they burn the bodies on a pyre with their childhood toys and then their ashes are buried under the most northern tree on the island.”

“What?” Abby squints at him.

“It’s a joke,” He replies evenly as he reaches out and takes the fishing rod while Abby sputters across from him. It was much more complicated than the ones used back in Haven. Not a surprise but still curious. He slowly winds and unwinds the line, trying to understand how it worked.

“Lev!” Suddenly Abby grabs him by the shoulder and tugs him forward. His heart races. What was happening? Were they sinking? Was a storm coming? She led him to the opposite side of the boat, facing out over the ocean. The sun was only just starting to set in that direction. Out in the distance, he sees something move in the water.

“What is it? A shark?”

Abby chuckles. “No. I think they’re whales. See? Sometimes they stick their heads up out of the water. Sharks can’t do that.”

“Oh.” he leans forward to get a better look. Then after a few seconds stands so he can lean further over the edge to get as close as possible. Abby hooks her fingers into the back of his shirt to keep him from falling in with curse. 

Lev had heard of whales, of course, he’d just never seen one in real life before. People in Haven used to say sometimes you could see them if you stood on the edge of the city and looked out into the port. But the whales were never this close, they were always far out in the distance. So they always felt indistinct and unreal, almost mythical. Yara had tried to convince him that whales were much nicer to sharks and that endeared him to whales even less. Sharks were cool because they were scary.

As he looks out at the whales, swimming even faster than their boat, all he can think about is how they seem like he and Abby; people on a journey, trying to make their way somewhere in the vast ocean and nothing mythical at all. Yet that made them all the more amazing. One whale leaps out of the sea and dives in deep and Lev wishes he could be that brave. But as the Prophet said, nature was here before them and would be there after. _Learn from nature. Learn to brave the sea._

He can’t see Abby’s face, but he could feel her smile as she watches him lean precariously over edge to see something that most people could never even imagine. He drops back onto the seat, just to spare Abby from having a heart attack. She sits down with him, her own eyes watching the whales. She looks young in that moment, soft, capable of innocent wonder just like he is. Suddenly, he’s struck by how he had assumed she didn’t feel things like that. “The ocean is actually kinda cold.” Lev comments offhand, but he was looking at her and not the sea. “When you aren’t seasick.”

“Okay, but it is actually, literally, really cold. You mean it’s ‘cool’.” She flicks his forehead. He’s learning that Abby shows her affection in round-about ways, like she can never find the words for it.

“I’m trying to watch the whales,” He shakes his head but manages briefly to catch her eye and she smiles. “You’re ruining it.”

“Oh, am I? Sorry about that.” They sat together, side by side, staring out at something beautiful instead of where they were headed until the sun dipped too low in the west and they were forced to look the other way.

__

> _Today was a lot better than the past few days. Lev is finally getting over his seasickness, thank fuck. I was worried about him. I’m not like you though, I’m not good at looking after other people. Honestly, I never noticed how much you tried to do that with us. Not just me, but everyone from Salt Lake. I guess we were too messed up to put back together at some point. Especially me. But you still fucking tried until the bitter end._
> 
> _Anyway, Lev and I saw whales the other day. I know seals are more your thing but after today I’m Team Whale and you definitely would have flipped your shit over them. I can see why people used to pay to go out and see them. The way they moved in the water made me feel like maybe we can actually make it to Santa Barbara and that I’m not crazy for doing this._
> 
> _Maybe it’s a sign._
> 
> _Boy, now I really sound like you and it’s fucking scary._


End file.
